Bright Sword: Rebirth of Kong Jie

With the defeat of the Japanese 3rd and 9th Mixed Brigade, the large-scale sweep launched by the devils against the independent regiment's base ended in a disastrous defeat.

The Japanese military system became increasingly strict, and military regulations have always been strict, so if they lost a battle, naturally someone had to take the blame.

Major General Kurokawa of the 3rd Mixed Brigade led the remnants of his defeated troops and retreated all the way from the independent regiment's base, cursing all the way and blaming all the faults on the headquarters' intelligence department.

"If it weren't for the false intelligence transmitted by these stupid guys, how could we have known nothing about the equipment level and actual combat effectiveness of this Eighth Route Army Independent Regiment?

The poorly equipped Eighth Route Army, is this the intelligence they have collected about the Eighth Route Army Independent Regiment?

But the equipment level and artillery intensity displayed by these damn Eighth Route Army are almost crushing our army.

If you ask me, the failure of this operation is due to the incompetence of the intelligence department.

The intelligence we gathered was horribly wrong.”

To be precise, this battle can be called a campaign based on its scale.

The 37rd Independent Mixed Brigade suffered heavy casualties. It not only lost a large number of artillery pieces belonging to the artillery team, including eight Type infantry guns, six Type regimental guns, plus some mm rapid-fire guns.

The baggage carried by the brigade was also completely lost.

Not only that, the entire brigade had nearly 6000 troops, and nearly half of them were killed or wounded, with only about 3000 people escaping.

This was almost the heaviest casualties suffered by the 3rd Mixed Brigade since the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War.

Before this, even in the confrontation with the Central Army on the front battlefield, such a heavy price had never been paid.

As for Major General Fujiwara of the 9th Mixed Brigade, he cursed the 3rd Mixed Brigade for betraying his teammates after the defeat.

He had not had time to evacuate and was fighting under pressure from the Eighth Route Army, but the 3rd Mixed Brigade suddenly evacuated.

This resulted in the defense of both flanks of his 9th Mixed Brigade being left unattended, allowing the Eighth Route Army to take advantage of the opportunity and attack.

As a result, the 9th Mixed Brigade had to retreat in a panic, and its casualties were even more exaggerated than those of the 3rd Mixed Brigade.

Of the more than 6000 elite soldiers in the entire brigade, only more than 2000 successfully withdrew from the independent regiment's base.

The artillery and baggage they carried were not seized by the Eighth Route Army. However, in order to prevent these bulky equipment from slowing down the troops' evacuation and causing the main force to be surrounded and annihilated by the Eighth Route Army, they were concentratedly blown up by the Japanese army.

Major General Fujiwara directly blamed the defeat on Major General Kurokawa for betraying his teammates.

After a round of buck-passing, the Japanese suddenly discovered that it was the First Army Commander Yoshio Shinozuka who seemed to be the one who proposed the combat plan to mobilize two independent field brigades to attack the independent regiment's base.

The battlefield observation group was also specially proposed by Yoshio Shinozuka.

As a result, the battlefield observation group was destroyed.

The 3rd and 9th Mixed Brigades suffered a disastrous defeat in their mopping-up operation against the independent regiment's base, and even his First Army Headquarters was bombarded and almost completely destroyed.

Considering this, isn't it the First Army Commander Yoshio Shinozuka who should bear the greatest responsibility for the disastrous defeat in launching a sweep against the Independent Regiment's base?

"General! Are you okay?"

Taiyuan City, the headquarters of the Japanese First Army.

Since the fall of Taiyuan, the city of Taiyuan, which was built like an iron barrel by the Japanese army, has never suffered artillery bombardment like today.

After the bombardment ended, the Japanese city defense forces quickly blocked off the entire Taiyuan city. Under the roaring death order of Yoshio Shinozuka, they were almost desperate, vowing to hunt out the enemy troops who had attacked the headquarters and cut them into pieces.

As a result, by the next morning, the Japanese army had searched almost the entire city of Taiyuan, but the enemy who had attacked the Japanese headquarters seemed to have evaporated from the face of the earth, without a trace left.

Finally, after the Japanese search team inspected the city’s defenses, they found some obvious scratches on the city walls.

From this, we can conclude that the enemy who infiltrated Taiyuan City and attacked the headquarters must have infiltrated by climbing over the city wall.

This is really hard to guard against.

The entire city of Taiyuan is not small in area.

The continuous surrounding city walls were dozens of kilometers long. The enemies could just choose any part of the city wall to climb over, and no matter how many Japanese troops they had, they would not be able to defend against them.

At dawn the next day, it was confirmed that the enemy who launched the sneak attack had completely left Taiyuan City.

Only then did Yoshio Shinozuka leave the air raid fortification under the protection of the guards and return to the headquarters.

Just as far as the eye could see, many buildings in the headquarters had collapsed, leaving only broken walls and ruins everywhere, which was a terrifying sight.

Suppressing his anger, Yoshio Shinozuka ordered the soldiers to rebuild the buildings so that the headquarters could be put back into use.

In addition, to stop people from talking.

Try to control the adverse effects of surprise artillery attacks on the headquarters.

He specifically ordered a fabrication of an excuse, saying that the Japanese army was conducting artillery experiments at night, and blocked the news from the outside world, so that the public would not know that the headquarters had been destroyed by artillery fire.

Soon, Colonel Yamamoto led the remaining dozen or so members of the Japanese special forces back to the headquarters to report.

Colonel Yamamoto, who was once so arrogant that he only targeted the Eighth Route Army Headquarters and even the Central Army Supreme Command in Chongqing.

At this moment, he looked like a defeated rooster, with his head lowered as if he was afraid to see people.

After seeing Yoshio Shinozuka, he called out "General". Seeing that Yoshio Shinozuka had a bandage on his arm, he was surprised and asked with concern.

When he thought of the embarrassment of last night, Shinozuka was so angry that he had to suppress his anger with great difficulty.

He looked up and replied, "It doesn't matter."

"Mr. Yamamoto, can you please tell me the details of your special forces' operation this time? Why did you fail?"

The topic quickly returned to normal.

Yoshio Shinozuka could not understand why an elite special operations force like the Yamamoto Special Forces would simply carry out a decapitation operation against a mere Eighth Route Army Independent Regiment.

Why did the airborne infiltration plan fail with the support of air firepower?

Hearing this, Yamamoto Ikki looked a little depressed, thinking of the time when his Yamamoto special forces infiltrated the base of the independent regiment.

"This independent regiment is very cunning. They seem to have specially created a plan to counter the infiltration of small groups of troops in the base. The defenses on all fronts in the base are very strict. In addition, there are some specially built camouflage bases and camouflage headquarters, etc., which are ready to lure us into a trap at any time.

I was totally unprepared for this and fell into the trap unexpectedly.

The Eighth Route Army specially arranged artillery units to cover my special forces with firepower. If I hadn't led the troops to retreat in time, the entire special forces team would have been completely destroyed in the independent regiment base! "

At this point, Colonel Yamamoto suddenly raised his head and looked at Shinozuka Yoshio, his eyes full of doubts:

"General, what exactly is the enemy doing in this surprise attack on the headquarters?"

"Which team are they?"

Shinozuka Yoshio said thoughtfully: "It is unlikely that the Central Army has such courage, and they are not proficient in special operations.

Judging from the small group of enemy troops that attacked the headquarters, they have some traces of your special forces. From this aspect, it is most likely a small combat unit of the Eighth Route Army."

"Damn it, it's these Eighth Route Army again!" Colonel Yamamoto clenched his fists, wishing he could tear the Eighth Route Army, especially the Eighth Route Army Independent Regiment, into pieces.

The two then discussed the reasons for the disastrous defeat of the 3rd and 9th Mixed Brigades in their attack on the Independent Regiment's base.

Shinozuka Yoshio said with some regret: "The intelligence department did not collect enough information until the battle started, when two groups of the Eighth Route Army suddenly appeared in the base of the Independent Regiment.

Only then did we discover that in the direction of Yangquan and Ping'an County, where this damn Eighth Route Army Independent Regiment was close to, there were two other Eighth Route Army troops, numbered the New 1st Regiment and the New 2nd Regiment.

Among them, although the New Second Regiment of the Eighth Route Army was a newly formed combat regiment, its commander was named Li Yunlong, who was once the commander of the New First Regiment. It was he who destroyed the Sakata Regiment Command with one shot in the Battle of Cangyunling.

The Eighth Route Army officer who caused the death of Colonel Sakata."

"It's him!"

Yamamoto Ikki nodded. Among the regimental-level combat generals of the Eighth Route Army, the one that gave the Japanese army the most headaches was the commander of the independent regiment, Kong Jie, and the next one was Li Yunlong.

Shinozuka Yoshio continued: "From the perspective of the Eighth Route Army's deployment, their independent regiment stationed in Shouyang, the new first regiment in Yangquan, and the new second regiment in the center, the three regiments seem to be able to reinforce and coordinate with each other.

There must be some secret transportation channels between them.

This is also the reason why the main forces of the New 1st Regiment and the New 2nd Regiment suddenly appeared in the base of the Independent Regiment. The appearance of these two forces disrupted our army's overall plan.

The 39th Mixed Brigade was attacked from the side.

In addition, the equipment level and hidden firepower of these Eighth Route Army troops are far more exaggerated than the intelligence we have collected.

The mopping-up troops suffered heavy casualties as a result, which was truly unexpected."

"What about the battlefield observation group?"

Yamamoto Ikki couldn't help asking again, but when he looked up and saw Shinozuka Yoshio's ugly face, he quickly swallowed his words.

The destruction of the battlefield observation group can be said to be a disgrace to the Shanxi First Army.

Yoshio Shinozuka couldn't even explain to other parties.

There are more than 100 officers, including a major general, Hattori Naoomi.

In addition, there are a considerable number of colonels, lieutenant colonels and majors.

As a result, he died inexplicably in Taihang Mountains.

What can Yoshio Shinozuka use to explain to the various fronts?

For a time, the Japanese First Army almost became a laughing stock to the Japanese fronts.

Yoshio Shinozuka and Kazuki Yamamoto had originally planned to showcase the charm of special operations through this battlefield observation group's visit.

The successful destruction of the Eighth Route Army Independent Regiment's base was used as a military achievement to officially publicize the huge potential of special operations to the Japanese Army's land forces system.

It is ultimately destined to end in failure.

Yamamoto's special forces team was completely defeated this time and lost all face. More than 80 elite Japanese agents were killed and only about ten were left.

How can we have the face to demand that special tactics be promoted in the army system?

Of course.

If you think about it from another angle.

For example, the special forces of the Eighth Route Army successfully launched a surprise attack on the headquarters of the Japanese First Army.

The Japanese might instead pay more attention to special operations.

Unfortunately, it was not because of his Yamamoto special forces, but because of the powerful special operations methods demonstrated by the Eighth Route Army.

Not long after, at the military meeting in Peiping convened by Tada Gun, commander-in-chief of the Japanese North China Front Army, Yoshio Shinozuka, commander of the First Army, attended the meeting, as did Colonel Yamamoto, captain of the Yamamoto Special Forces.

During the meeting, Tada Shun did not give any face at all and severely criticized the First Army's failure in this operation and the tactical command mistakes made by the commander Yoshio Shinozuka.

"The Third and Ninth Mixed Brigades, two major field brigades, suffered a disastrous defeat, and they were defeated by a second-rate combat unit like the Eighth Route Army. This is almost the worst defeat our empire has ever experienced!"

"Shinozuka-kun, I'm afraid your First Army needs to be reorganized, otherwise the Imperial Army will lose face!"

In this regard, Shinozuka Yoshio, who had lost the battle, was speechless. Later, when talking about the rapid growth of the Eighth Route Army.

Shinozuka Yoshio didn't care about the embarrassment and quickly said:

"In the past, because the Eighth Route Army was poorly equipped and not very large in size, we classified it as a Class C combat unit, or even ignored it.

But I think this concept will be completely overturned from now on.

Today's Eighth Route Army is growing rapidly, their equipment level has been greatly improved, and the size of their forces is even more shocking.

Including the so-called Hundred Regiments Campaign they launched this time, nearly one hundred regiments have been mobilized to participate in the war so far.

There were more than 20 troops in total.

Ladies and Gentlemen, isn't this enough to attract our attention? "

Tada Shun nodded. This was exactly the purpose of his convening the highest military meeting of the North China Front Army in Peiping this time.

The Eighth Route Army grew stronger and stronger, and the size of its forces was far beyond the expectations of the Japanese army.

This time, the Hundred Regiments Campaign, a large-scale campaign, shattered the blockade that the Japanese army had built for many years.

Especially in Shanxi, thanks to the cover of the independent regiment's base operations, almost all transportation lines, railways, roads, bridges and tunnels in the entire Shanxi province were completely destroyed by the Eighth Route Army.

A large area of ​​transportation lines were paralyzed.

As a result, a huge gap appeared in the so-called cage blockade of the Japanese army.

If this continues, the situation will only get worse.

"It seems that we need to gradually shift the focus of our operations from fighting the Nationalist Army on the front battlefield to targeting the Eighth Route Army in the occupied areas!"

Tada Shun spoke slowly, and all the Japanese officers attending the meeting nodded in agreement.

Then someone mentioned the special operations of the Japanese army system.

Naturally, the Yamamoto special forces team, which are the best at special operations, are mentioned. These elites graduated from the German Special Forces Military Academy.

"I heard that this time, Mr. Yamamoto led a special forces team to carry out a decapitation operation against the Eighth Route Army Independent Regiment Command, but unfortunately failed?"

The sudden words made Yamamoto's face look extremely ugly. He swore that he had never been so embarrassed in his life.

If I had known this would happen, I would have rather died in the independent regiment’s base.

At least you can be honored after your death.

He gritted his teeth.

Yamamoto stood up and said, "Hi!"

"But I also heard that the Eighth Route Army successfully bombarded the First Army Headquarters using the same special operations method. Is this true?"